Apr. 7, 2013

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Indiana's Cody Zeller hangs his head as he talks to his coach Tom Crean,right, in the second half of their fourth round game of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Thursday evening at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. Matt Kryger / The Star / Indianapolis Star

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ATLANTA — Tom Crean thought he’d be here coaching his team this weekend. Instead, he’s giving speeches, doing work with various coaching associations and fulfilling some obligations.

All the while, he’s still taking mental inventory, still figuring out what went wrong down the stretch of the Indiana basketball season and what went terribly wrong in the Hoosiers’ Sweet Sixteen loss to Syracuse.

“We didn’t get to the foul line,” said Crean, who sat in a downtown hotel lobby between meetings Saturday, giving his first post-mortem since the season ended. For the record, IU had 24 free throws, made just 15.

“We got the ball where we wanted it in the middle, got it to where you can operate in the middle and get it to the baseline. The biggest problem versus the zone — besides the obvious, the length and the way they closed out on shooters — was we didn’t attack off the wing the way we’re accustomed to.

“And the turnovers (18) were obviously a big detriment. We just never got on track. Their length was stunning, but most of the turnovers were self-inflicted. I think we were rushing, more than anything, and that caused the turnovers more than their length did.”

It’s not like IU didn’t prepare for the zone, even if it sometimes looked that way. The problem was preparing for the Syracuse zone, which has completely shut down Montana, California, IU and Marquette on the way to the Final Four. It is impossible to replicate the Syracuse zone in a practice, unless you have five 6-6 players with lengthy wingspans on the scout team.

“We had played very well versus the 2-3 during the year; that’s why we were zoned so little,” Crean said. “But facts are facts. We hadn’t seen a zone like that all season. And when they decided to turn it up, which they did from the tournament on, it makes it tough to deal with.

“What they do so fundamentally strong is the way they close out on shooters and close out with wingspan.

“If we had gotten some foul calls in the middle of the zone, maybe there would have been less people in the lane. But we didn’t. It wasn’t like Cody (Zeller) shied away from it. When you watch objectively and take the emotion from it, it comes down to that. We defended well enough. But there’s nothing you can do.”

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Crean was asked if he thought his team lost some of its energy in the last couple of weeks of the season, when IU struggled to a 3-3 finish before embarking on the NCAA tournament.

He demurred.

“I just thought we were inconsistent,” he said. “But you look at that Michigan game, that was as high level a game as you’re going to find, you don’t get 53 rebounds if you’re fatigued. Our defense was good at the end of the year — our 3-point defense was even better — but we didn’t shoot well the last few weeks. I don’t care if you’re in high school, college, the NBA, if you’re not shooting the ball well, you’re going to lose some confidence.

“So our shooting, plus we gave up more live-ball turnovers than we usually give up — the what-ifs are endless. But you’ve got to look at it and say, ‘Listen, we won 29 games, let’s not just focus on one or two games. I’ve gone back through all the practices, there’s not much I’d change. There really isn’t. Believe me, I’d be the first to change something if I thought there was a reason to change it. You’re always assessing these things.”

As the IU players sat for hours in the postgame locker room that night — they were stuck there because a player couldn’t produce a drug-testing sample — Crean made sure to send an upbeat message to a downcast group of players.

“What I told the players, and keep telling them, is they have to have perspective,” Crean said. “They did great things. We won more games in a two-year span behind only the ’75-76 teams and the ’92-93 teams. You want them to feel that. And the award list for our guys is so long.

“It hit me the other day, April 3. April 2 was the anniversary of the day we got the job, but 10:17 a.m. April 3, that’s when it all started, that’s when the honeymoon ended, because that day, we found out we had 19 Fs (among players). I always use that as a personal reference point.

“Now we’re looking at our fifth anniversary and we’re counseling guys who can go in the NBA lottery. Every day, you get closer and closer to focusing on how great it’s been, but you never stop focusing on how to make it better.”

Crean also has another thing on his to-do list:

Advise and inform Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo on their NBA draft prospects. He thinks he knows what both are going to do but is unwilling to share that inclination, for obvious reasons. What he does know, though, is both would be NBA lottery picks, based on conversations he has had with NBA scouting directors, general managers and other league power brokers.

“It’s pretty self-explanatory for both of them: If they go (into the draft), they’re both lottery picks,” Crean said. “We put in the paperwork for both of them with the Undergraduate Advisory Committee. But we keep checking with general managers, scouting directors, personnel people, and we try to keep them away from the variety of other opinions that are out there — the dot-coms, the unnamed sources.

“The future is so bright for both of them. If they decide to go, there can be nothing but a blessing given.”